


Maximalist

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben “Sneaky Bastard” Solo, Dom Ben Solo, Dom/sub, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Food Porn, Inappropriate Use of Color Theory, Light Dom/sub, Minor Angst, Possessive Ben Solo, Possessive Kylo Ren, Rey “Feisty Bitch” Niima, Smut, Sub Rey, The Author Knows Jack Shit About Interior Design, but an adorable one, either the wallpaper goes or i do, feng shui fuck fights, look im not a patient woman, of course, regular porn, room porn, rose tico is kind of a basic bitch, she hates him in chapter 1 but theyre smashing face by chapter 2, well maybe not light lmao, you can pry the dash key out of my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:53:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26115991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “What the fuck does Solo know? You’ve seen his place. Do you want a house to live in or a house where you’re afraid to sit down?”“Uh, Rey,” says Rose, “he’s right behind - ““My apartment is magazine-worthy,” rumbles Ben Solo, minimalist extraordinaire.Unperturbed by his quiet arrival, Rey rounds on him, exclaiming, “Your apartment is cold and it feels like a rental. Mess!” - she shoves her sunglasses into her hair for emphasis - “is humanity.”Ben meets her gaze, accented by eyeshadow the colors of a sunset, and then flicks the sunglasses back down her face. “Mess,” he tells her, with a hint of a smirk, “is childish.”—————Rey is an interior designer who loves jewel tones and houseplants and knickknacks. Ben is an architect who believes anything not made of steel and glass belongs in a child’s bedroom. When friends Rose and Hux call on them for help moving into their new house, things get heated.(And not just because of the beautiful brick fireplace.)
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Slight Finn/Poe Dameron, slight Armitage Hux/Rose Tico
Comments: 9
Kudos: 74





	1. Their Place

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhh this is my first fic so. Here goes nothin

“Rey, baby, Reyby, I’m so glad you’re here!” Poe is the first to greet her, kissing her on both cheeks as she pushes her sunglasses up off her face.

”An hour late,” mutters Armitage from the still plastic-covered couch. Rose, laying with her head on his lap, blows Rey a kiss.

”Don’t call me Rabies again, Poe, and Hux, I’m late because I want to celebrate this new stage in your relationship with my best friend, and it’s not a celebration without - “

“Blackbird Street?!” gasps Rose, sitting bolt upright so quickly she nearly clips her fiancé’s chin.

”Blackbird Street,” Rey confirms with a grin, pulling a big sweet-smelling brown paper bag from her satchel. She tosses the bag to Rose, who immediately retires to Armie’s lap to peruse the selection. Rose and Armie’s new house is adorable, and Rey’s glad her friends are getting a home and moving out of Armie’s bachelor pad. It’s a two-bedroom Dutch Colonial painted a creamy yellow-white, with forest green shutters framing the plate-glass windows and a brick chimney that matches the steps up to the door. Inside, the first floor is open-plan, the living room with its cozy fireplace bleeding into the kitchen and dining area. Rey hasn’t seen the second floor, but she’s sure she’ll like it too, especially if it has the same rich hardwood floor as the first - a hardwood floor which is currently mostly concealed by unpacked boxes and sheet-covered furniture. 

“It’s not like you lot have accomplished much moving in in my absence, anyways,” observes Rey. “Have you done anything besides bringing the furniture inside?” 

”Nope,” Poe tells her, ambling to the entryway to answer a knock.

”Your caffeine god has arrived,” intones a voice from the other side of the door. Poe swings it open to reveal Finn, loaded down by two cardboard trays of coffee.

Poe greets his boyfriend with a quick “Babe,” gracefully relieving him of one tray and kissing him in the same movement. “Ah, cortado for me, latte for the ginger, Lavender London Fog for Rabies, and a PSL for Rosie - really, Rosie?”

Rose mutters something vaguely offensive and reaches for her drink without taking her focus off the flaky, sugar-syrup-laminated kouign-amann.

“Ooh, Blackbird Street. Did you get the maple donuts?”

”You know it, Finn.”

”So,” grins Poe, “are we still waiting for - “ Finn hits him.

Rey narrows her eyes and notices - _Jesus Christ_ \- Finn is still carrying two coffees. The iced latte he prefers even in the chilly September air, and...

”A flat white,” growls Rey, whipping around to glare at Rose so fast her sunglasses fall back onto the bridge of her nose. She doesn’t bother to fix them, too focused on the issue at hand. “You didn’t tell me Solo’s coming.”

Behind her, Poe mouths, “Phrasing.”

Rose tries to talk around a mouthful of pastry and falls into a coughing fit. Hux pats her on the back and says, “Why not? You guide us towards more, he guides us towards less, and we end up with a happy medium. Besides, you need to learn to get along. The maid of honor and the best man are generally expected to not tear out each other’s throats by the altar.”

Rey, in her indignation, does not hear the door open behind her as she cries, “What the fuck does Solo know? You’ve seen his place. Do you want a house to live in or a house where you’re afraid to sit down?”

Rose, having finally finished her pastry, begins, “Uh, Rey, he’s right behind - “

“My apartment is magazine-worthy,” rumbles Ben Solo, minimalist extraordinaire. “ _Yours_ is messy.”

Unperturbed, Rey rounds on him, exclaiming, “Your apartment is cold and it feels like a rental. Mess!” - she shoves her sunglasses into her hair for emphasis - “is humanity.”

Ben meets her gaze, accented by eyeshadow the colors of a sunset, and then flicks the sunglasses back down her face. “Mess,” he tells her, with a hint of a smirk, “is childish.”

Rey flushes with fury. Definitely fury and definitely not how strangely nice it feels to look up, up, into those whiskey-brown eyes and to have those black cashmere sweater-covered shoulders nearly fill her field of vision with how goddamn broad they are.

God, he’s _huge_.

And an asshole. Obnoxious enough to inspire a fury that flutters in her belly and makes her want to bite her lip.

Definitely fury. 

Rey takes the high road, which for her means pushing her sunglasses back up, rolling her eyes and turning to face Rose. “Now that we’re all here,” she says pointedly, “can we get started?” Rose sighs. “Sure.”

—————

She _rolled her eyes_ at him. The brat. Ben tries very hard not to think about what he wants to do to her for that, or about how he doesn’t mind color and chaos so much when it’s her, or how he might even be willing to bring _throw pillows_ \- useless, ridiculous throw pillows - into his pristine apartment if he could nestle her among them, maybe in one of his shirts or some of her colorful scraps of lace and silk, and eat her out til she begged him to fuck her. 

—————

Later, after Rose and Armitage set up the bed in the second bedroom, she says, “Maybe we should trick them up here and just lock them in.” 

Armitage seriously considers it.


	2. Your Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He can’t just fax it to me?”
> 
> “Uh...no. You have to get in person, and that way you can go over it with him!”
> 
> —————
> 
> Rey cannot believe she’s here. She cannot believe she’s doing this. She cannot believe she’s about to enter the frigid sanctum of her aesthetic archenemy of her own free will.
> 
> —————
> 
> Hux asks Ben to make a list of suggestions and minor renovations for the house. Rose wants Rey to look over it, for design reasons, not because she wants her in Ben’s house so they finally fuck or anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God damn I am making myself hungry
> 
> It gets clumsy at the end, I’m sorry, it’s 2 am on a Wednesday and I am Bad at Writing Feelings, and tbh almost everything except food. Food descriptions influenced by the work of Peter Mayle. If you haven’t read A Year in Provence or Anything Considered, please do, but with snacks close by, because that man was a food writer through and through. It is clear in his writing that he loved his dogs, he loved his wife, and he loved France, but his heart belonged to cuisine.
> 
> How did this become a book review? I’m so sorry. Goodnight.

Rey wakes to the sound of “Work It” blasting from her phone. She grabs it and picks up the phone, the personalized ringtone saving her from having to even check the caller ID.

“Rose,” she says, still groggy.

“Rey!” cheers her best friend, much too perky for 8:30 on a Sunday. Then, without preamble, she ruins Rey’s day. “I need you to go to Ben’s.”

Rey hangs up. As if Rose was expecting that, the phone immediately starts ringing again.

All of Ben’s ringtones are probably default. Ugh. Rey picks up the phone.

“Why.”

”Well, Armie asked him to draw up a list of suggestions for decorating the house now that the essentials are moved in, and I wanted you to look over it and discuss it with him. You know, temper the brutalist vibe.”

”It’s minimalist, not brutalist.”

”Whatever. I’m still making you go.”

“He can’t fax it to me?”

”Uh...no. You have to get it person, and that way you can go over it with him!”

“You ask me to be civil to Ben Solo and then you send me to his showroom of a house to discuss leaching all the personality out of my best friend’s home?”

”Yes.”

”His apartment looks like the inside of a dishwasher.”

”I respect your opinion and your right to state it.”

”God fucking damnit. You’re so lucky I love you.”

”Love you too!” chirps Rose. “Oh, and maybe throw on something cute and brush your hair.”

Rey chooses not to dignify that with a response. ”Bye-bye,” she says, and hits the red button on her screen.

She does brush her hair and throw on something cute, though, refusing to think about why she chose a highly impractical (but lovely) lacy bra in shades of gold and amber and her favorite pale purple silk panties to wear under the light-wash denim shorts that emphasize her narrow waist and make her ass look fantastic, and the loose, low-necked white silky shirt she tucks into them. Over that she shrugs on her beloved, well-worn army green coat.  
  


Rey looks herself up and down in the mirror and then pisses herself off more by slicking on a layer of pinkish lipgloss.

—————

Bells jingle merrily as Rey pushes through the door into Blackbird Street Bakery & Cafe, the beautiful smells of jams and chocolate and sugar and coffee doing wonders for her mood. Not the healthiest way to start the day, but Rey needs a pick-me-up to face Ben, with his broad chest and full mouth and soft black hair, and sweets are arguably better for her than whiskey. Besides, while Blackbird Street is in the opposite direction as Rose and Armie’s, it’s on her way to Ben’s.

”Hey, Rey!” Kaydel, the bakery’s owner and main pastry chef, greets her with a smile. “What’ll it be this morning?”

”Morning, Kay,” Rey smiles back. “Can I get a kardemummabullar and a latte?”

“Of course! First batch just came out of the ovens and they’re still warm. I’ll get Jannah to start on your latte.”

Rey bites back a sigh in anticipation of the buttery, cardamom-flavored knot of sweet bread. “Thanks, Kay.” 

The bakery is nothing short of lovely, featuring white stone floors decorated with a black outlined diamond pattern, reclaimed wood counters topped with creamy marble, and soft white walls hung with works by local artists. The tables and chairs have wrought iron bases and surfaces the same marble as the counters, and everything is bathed in warm, natural light from the floor-to-ceiling windows that face out into the street. Rey hardly notices, too busy thinking about how Ben “Protein Shake for Breakfast” Solo will react to her showing up with sweets for breakfast twice in a week. Just to rile him up, she buys a box of macarons from Kaydel before she leaves.

—————

Ben doesn’t even say greet her when he opens the door. His eyes narrow in on the treats in her hand. “The sweet bun? Fine. It’s sugary but it’s still technically a breakfast food. But _macarons_? For breakfast?”

Rey hides a grin and pushes past him into the apartment, on the tippy top floor of his building.

She was exaggerating when she said the place looked like the inside of a dishwasher; she’s big enough to admit that, but only to herself. It’s a bachelor pad, that’s for sure, with only four rooms: the main one they’re in now, a gym, his bedroom, and an en-suite bathroom. It’s not small by any means, though; the room they’re in probably has more square footage than Rey’s apartment, and Ben has the whole penthouse floor to himself. The floors of the place are dark grey slate, and two walls are entirely of glass, with a stunning view of the city below and the lake it sits on the shores of to the north. There’s a sitting area with a modern, free-standing glassed-in fireplace and black leather couches that look low but are not up close. On the glass-and-steel coffee table sits various fancy architecture books and magazines, most of which Ben’s been featured in, though not by that name. Hux had already explained to Rey that Ben used a pseudonym - Kylo Ren - as an architect to avoid benefiting from a connection to his mother and uncle, who jointly own a prestigious design magazine, or his father, a former famous race car driver.

Rey glances up at the high ceilings and thinks that everything in the apartment must be scaled up to fit the resident, including the mahogany table at the other end of the room and the chef-level kitchen, gleaming with top-of-the-line Miele appliances, like the massive espresso machine. She puts the untouched clear box of macarons and the rest of her sweet bun on the counter. Ben cleats his through and slides a flat, stylish plate under the bun.

Rey’s been to Ben’s before for hangouts and cocktail parties, and she’s also been to the included private roof, which has, along with patio seating and a grill, a pool.

A fucking _pool_. 

Rey’s never been in the bedroom, though.

 _Not_ , she reminds herself savagely, _that I want to_.

She turns back to Ben, who is drumming his fingers on the counter. She tries not to stare at them, a rabbit hole she’s fallen into before, one that ended with daydreams of him filling her up with them, getting her ready for his cock, which is probably massive. She tells hereself to focus. “So. List?”

Ben ignores that, preferring his earlier topic. “Is that why you’re so tiny? You never eat anything with nutritional value?”

Rey bristles at that. “Actually,” she bites, “Growing up in the foster system means you don’t always get enough food to grow on.”

She immediately regrets opening her mouth. Finn is open about the struggles they both went through as kids before they found Maz - and each other - and made a family, but Rey isn’t. She hates how vulnerable the telling makes her, and shrinks from sympathy. When she glances at Ben, though, there’s no cloying compassion on his face. Instead, he looks...furious. 

“Fucking hell, Rey.”

Rey’s stomach flips at the idea of Ben being angry on her behalf, the idea that he cares. The idea that he wants to protect her. Then she almost shakes her head at herself. No one wants to hear about children being mistreated, neglected. He’d have the same reaction to anyone.

”So.” says Rey again. “List.”

This time Ben allows the topic change. “Coffee table.”

Rey meanders towards the sitting area, but Ben doesn’t follow, instead starting to rummage around in the kitchen. As Rey begins to skim the list, she smells food cooking; odd, as she knows Ben likes early morning runs and joyless breakfasts before she even wakes up. She checks her phone. It’s ten in the morning, much too late for Ben’s first meal of the day.

That mystery is solved when Ben walks over, plate in hand, and puts it down in front of her. “Eat.”

Rey looks down at the plate of poached eggs, bacon, sausage links, lime wedges perched upon neatly sliced avocado on toast, sprinkled with freshly cracked black pepper and big flakes of sea salt that look like Maldon, and hash browns. _Homemade_ hash browns. She looks up at Ben, craning her neck even more than usual to make eye contact without standing up. “What’s this?”

”Real food,” he says, but his expression is too soft for the words to bite. “Eat.”

Rey is wordless. She starts to eat.

”Good girl,” Ben rumbles, and Rey is almost sure her pupils dilate. She’s almost sure Ben notices.

For a while, she eats, and Ben watches, still standing. After a bit he shakes himself off and says, “Juice?” 

Rey glances up and says in an unintentionally small voice, “Yes, please.”

—————

It’s the first time she’s ever said “please” to him. Ben decides he wants her to do it again and again. He wants to make her say please; he can hear her, please, Ben, so sweet and lovely, as he fucks her, as he makes her come. But that’s not all he wants to do, he realizes as he fills a cup with orange juice. He wants to make her breakfast. He wants to make sure she gets protein and vitamins and sunshine. He wants to take care of her. 

—————

Rey jumps when he sets the glass down in front of her; she’d been alarmingly unable to keep herself from drifting into a reverie featuring her enemy’s plush mouth. She composed herself as quickly as possible, but the quick “thanks” she throws him is still much less breezy than she intended. She half expects him to wander off somewhere, but instead he sits down on the couch across from her and just...watches her, brown eyes intense.

”Did you read the list yet, sweetheart?” he asks her.

Rey nearly chokes at “sweetheart” and she’s sure she’s turning pink. “The list, right,” she says lamely, and reaches for the pad of paper. When she tries to pull it towards her, she only manages to slosh the orange juice onto her white shirt, soaking it. 

”Oh my God, I - “ begins Rey, flustered, but Ben is already at her elbow, tugging her to her feet. 

”It’s okay, sweetheart,” he tells her, the endearment hitting her even harder this time as he guides her into his room - as sparsely and stylishly appointed as the rest of his home - and into the black-and-white marble bathroom. He turns to a closet as he says, “There’s a washer and dryer in here, and you can rinse off in the shower if you want.”

Rey, just stands there, stunned by the way her morning has gone. Ben walls back over to her, his expression gentle. “It’s alright, kitten,” he tells her. “Can I help you take this off?”

Rey nods, silently. “Arms up,” Ben instructs, and she obeys. 

When he pulls the blouse over her head, Rey whispers, “Why are you being so nice?”

Ben stops, speechless. For a bit he just looks at her, and then, ever so carefully, he wraps his arms around her waist, draws her in, and leans down to kiss her.


	3. Still Your Place

He kissed her. He’s kissing her. Rey’s brain lags.

Distantly, Rey realizes she should be pulling back, because she hates this man whose mouth is so soft and so nice and so very _on hers_ , and then, suddenly, isn’t.

He stopped kissing her. He’s no longer kissing her. Inexplicably bereft, Rey opens eyes she doesn’t remember closing to see Ben step back and run his hands through his hair. He isn’t looking at her. He’s looking at anything but her as he works his jaw and says, “I...sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” and then walks out of the sleek cold bathroom, leaving Rey half-dressed and still reeling.

—————

 _Stupid_. Stupid and cruel and fucking _unspeakable_ , to do that, to make her breakfast and insult her and apparently retraumatize her or something, and when she’s emotionally vulnerable and confused and lost to take off her shirt, so convinced he could control himself, and then ( _why are you being so nice_ ) to...accost her.

Ben shudders.

He really hadn’t meant to. When she banged on his door that morning and he opened it, he felt the same rush of emotions he always did when he saw her - irritation at the invasion of sound and color and mess he knew would follow her, and disdain for it, for her, and for her choices (fucking macarons? Really?) and as always that pang. The pang of how lovely and small and sweet she was, though never to him, the pang that got fiercer every time he saw her smile at her friends or coo at puppies in the street, every time she drew herself up to her full height to deliver a righteous speech - usually to him - about life or injustice or whatever he’d slighted. Ben was starting to realize he provoked her just to hear that pretty voice.

And now he’s ruined it, any chance of seeing her again. Insulted her and then made her breakfast instead of just apologizing like a grown-up, showed his pathetic hand, called her pet names because he couldn’t help himself, and he needed to see her pretty blush. And then - kissed her. Took her into his bathroom, pulled off her shirt, and kissed her. Like an asshole. Like a creep. And she’d just sat there, appalled, most likely.

Or _scared_ of him. Ben hates that thought, but he makes himself wallow in it. _Scared of him_. He’d scared her. He deserves that guilt.

—————

Rey genuinely cannot process what just happened. She’s standing on the slick marble floor, confused and cold and wishing.

Wishing that Ben hadn’t left, that he hadn’t stopped kissing her. That he’d picked her up, maybe, and brought her into the bedroom, and set her down on the bed, and - 

Well. He hadn’t. Instead he’d just backed off, ashamed and diminished, apologetic even. Such a sharp contrast to how cool and controlled he was the rest of the time, to the way he’d taken care of her, cooked for her, helped her out of her shirt. She’d felt so warm, she realized, being taken care of. So safe when he called her sweetheart.

”For such a frigid asshole,” Hux had told her once when he’d caught her staring and she’d pretended the heat she felt was hate, “he’s a real softie. Sensitive, even.”

Rey had laughed, but now...soft. _Sensitive_ , she thought, and then - _oh_. _Oh no_.

She hadn’t kissed him back.

She’d been stunned, relieved somehow, but she hadn’t kissed him back, and shit, Rey realizes, _he thinks that I don’t want him_.

She hurries out of the room.

Ben is in the living room, pacing by the wall of windows. He doesn’t see her, clearly. She steadies her breath and says,

—————

“Ben.”

Ben looks up and there’s Rey, lovely as the sunset, standing in the door of his bedroom. She’s glaring at him and walking over and his mind is utterly blank as she takes his right hand, so large against hers, and puts it on her hip. 

He just kind of stares at her.

And she takes the other hand and puts it on her other hip. 

He finds his voice enough to begin, “Rey, I - “ and then she stands on tiptoe and wraps her arms around his neck and cuts him off with a kiss.

—————

Immediately Rey realizes that Ben must have bent down to kiss her before, because Jesus Christ he’s tall and she has to stretch to reach him and her neck kind of hurts, and she’s wondering if she’s going to get a cramp (cause that would be awkward) when he comes to life and grabs her hips and hoists her up.

 _Thank god_ , thinks Rey, wrapping her legs around him. She’s closed her eyes again, but she can feel that they’re going somewhere, and then Ben is sitting down and adjusting her on his lap. Rey lets him arrange her to his satisfaction, able to feel to her delight that the man is very proportional.

When he pulls back, Rey actually _whines_. “Rey,” he says, laying a massive hand on her cheek and turning her face to look at him. His warm brown eyes are cautious, she sees, but the expression on his face is fond. “Rey,” says Ben again. “We should talk about this.”

”Right, yes, talk,” says Rey, unable to stop thinking about the size of her hand and how warm it is on her face and how warm it would be around her neck. Time. She needs time to compose herself, to manage her thoughts. “Can we talk at my house?”

”Ok,” says Ben. “I’ll drive.”


End file.
